Data Collection

A challenge that clubs grapple with is estimating and communicating usage of our trails. Our planning, development and management processes would be better helped if we had access to good data on local trail usage. We know MTBing is really popular but when they ask for specifics, it’s hard to make a convincing case to land managers, funding agencies and our trail builders when we don’t have good statistics on trends.

We’ve toyed with trail counters, cameras and physical counts. Now it’s time to tap into big data on the Internet:

Strava is the social network for athletes; a global community of millions of runners, cyclists and triathletes, united by the camaraderie of sport.

If you have a smart phone or GPS enabled device (i.e. Garmin) you can sign up to a free Strava account by visiting www.strava.com and set up your device to sync with Strava when you next ride!

Join the fun and see how many KOM’s you can get!!

Trailforks by Pinkbike is probably the largest database of MTB trails in the world. It’s home to data on >80,000km of trails around the globe, including our trails right here in the Whitsundays.

Your ride data:

When it comes to ride data, Trailforks has a neat Ridelog feature that allows bulk import of Strava rides as well as automatic importing of Strava activity. As riders upload their ride data via:
– bulk import;
– automatically from Strava; or
– manually,
the database links to existing data on cities, riding areas and individual trails.

This allows for reporting to answer questions like:
– Are check-ins/number of rides increasing over time?
– Are our black/double-black trails getting used?
– Which are our more popular trails?
– Are we seeing more kids and ladies riding our trails over time?
– What proportion of riders are locals?

Questions like these often come up during trail decision-making meetings about existing and future trails. We’d love good data to inform those decisions.

Also, trail usage data is very valuable in our applications to seek funding for new trails. And when we’re talking to land managers and sponsors, they’re always very interested in stats about trail use.

Please link your Strava/other ride data

If you get a spare moment at the computer, it will take just a short list of steps to share your data:
– Setup a free Pinkbike account http://www.pinkbike.com/user/signup/;
– While logged into Pinkbike, log into Trailforks;
– Add a Ridelog for past rides, either single GPX/TCX/other file or Bulk import from Strava/MapMyRide; and
– Setup Automatic Strava importing to link future ride data.
Done!

Townsville Rockwheelers are also using this technology and a lot of information posted here has been obtained with their help. Please help support Townsville Rockwheelers events and by riding their trails with your GPS devices next time you’re up that way!

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